When I was five and a half years old, my mother took me and left my father. I was 6 years old the last time I saw him. We moved in with my grandmother and her husband. Even though they had been married since my mother was young, I will never refer to that man as my grandfather. He was a monster, and my mother knew it; maybe she convinced herself that he was too old to do to me worse than what he did to her, maybe she didn’t care. I will never know what was going through her mind or why she made the decisions that she did. All I know is that man was not too old, and had become more depraved in his old age, and my mother did nothing to protect me.

When I was seven years old, my mother remarried, and my life completely changed. My stepfather lived in a bad neighborhood with a bad school district, and my grandmother lived in a good neighborhood with a good school district. Because of that, I lived with my grandmother during the week during the school year, and lived with my mother the rest of the time. Every Sunday when my mother dropped me off at my grandmother’s house, I would sob uncontrollably and beg her to stay or take me back with her. I had difficulty being separated from her, and after the abuse began, I did not want to go to my grandmother’s home at all. Things at my mother’s home were not great either, but were the lesser of the two evils.

My mother told me to tell her if my grandmother’s husband ever touched me inappropriately, but she didn’t tell me why. I didn’t tell her about the abuse because I was scared. He had threatened me, said if I told, I wouldn’t be believed and something “bad” would happen to my mother. I had developed an irrational fear of my mother dying, which he knew, so he was able to use it to manipulate me. When I was 14 years old, after he died, I eventually told my mother what happened. She was angry I didn’t tell her when it was happening, and didn’t understand my reasons for keeping it to myself. She then turned it around to talk about what he had done to her and made the situation about her and what she went through throughout her life. She never comforted me or apologized. He had molested her when she was a teenager.

My grandmother’s husband started molesting me while my mother still lived there. He would wait until everyone had gone to sleep at night, which provided him very few opportunities while my mother lived there because she had insomnia. My grandmother, on the other hand, was prescribed Valium, mood stabilizers, and antipsychotics, so she was asleep most of the time, or so completely out of it, she had no idea what was going on. The only exception was when she would stop taking her medication to treat her Bipolar I Disorder, but even then she continued to take Valium, because she was more than likely addicted to it. After my mother moved in with her new husband, there were no safeguards at night to keep him away. He raped me for the first time a week after my mother moved out. I was 7 years old. He continued to rape me on a weekly basis (sometimes more or less often) until I was 10 years old and had begun having a menstrual cycle. After that he would only use his fingers, probably because he didn’t want to risk getting me pregnant. When we visited my grandmother’s house after moving out, he would touch me if I was left alone with him. The older I got, the easier it was to fight him off, and one day, when I was 14 years old, he tried to touch my breasts, but I managed to shove him away from me. He ended up falling and braking his hip. He lied and said he tripped and fell.

We visited him in the hospital right before he was to have surgery to fix his hip. My grandmother’s best friend and her son were there as well, to offer support to my grandmother. While we were in the room, I could feel the friend’s son leering at me, his gaze pausing on my breasts. For whatever reason, at one point I was alone in the room with him, and he said to me, “If I were a few years younger, I would marry you.” He glanced down at his crotch, looked at me and smiled. I glanced where he had just glanced and could see the outline of an erection. I still remember that moment clearly, almost 20 years later, because that was the moment I knew I was worth only one thing to men; an object, and I ran with it. I had been stared at and cat called before, but this was different. This married man, who was around the same age as my mother, who knew how old I was, in the room of my abuser, made a pass at me, wanted me, desired me. Those other men just said things, and likely didn’t know I was a teenager, because I looked like an adult, in body, face, and the way I carried myself. Obviously I had a very dysfunctional way of thinking, and it has taken years of therapy to change that.

At night I was being sexually abused by my grandmother’s husband. During the day, I was physically and emotionally abused by my grandmother. She would fly into rages over seemingly nothing and slap me, pull me by my hair, hit me with different objects, and would say demeaning things about my looks, intelligence, anything she was able to criticize. She would also tell me what a horrible person my biological father was, and that I would be just like him. She made me take laxatives every day, and I would sit in the bathroom with her while she vomited after she ate.

Abuse affects everyone in different ways. I ended up becoming very promiscuous because I tied my worth to whether or not I was desired; it’s something I struggled with for many years, and continue to fight the thoughts tied to it. I also had a disconnect between sex and emotions. They’ve always been completely separate in my mind. I could have an emotional attachment to someone, but it would completely shut off once anything physical began. The concept of “making love” has been foreign to me, and this by far has been one of the biggest struggles I continue to battle with to this day. I can say I’ve always enjoyed physical pleasure though, which I’m thankful for.

My grandmother’s husband was about to be wheeled away to the operating room, and everyone was saying their well wishes to him. He asked me to give him a kiss on his cheek. When I leaned in to kiss his cheek, I whispered to him that he was going to die and rot in hell. I kissed his cheek and was amused at the look of fear he had in his eyes.

He died on the operating table due to a stroke. I’d like to think my parting words had something to do with it, but it likely happened because he was 89 years old having a major surgery. I celebrated his death during his funeral by having sex with the priest’s son in a different area of the church.

My grandmother died four and a half years later, a couple weeks before I turned 19. Her best friend and her son, the same one I mentioned earlier, were at the viewing and funeral. For both I had worn a form fitting dress that was barely long enough to cover my ass. The friend’s son leered again, and made a point to tell me his marriage had fallen apart and he was in the middle of a divorce. I responded by asking him if I was too old for him.

My mother and I received my grandmother’s house in her will. My mother and stepfather decided I would live in the house as long as I paid the bills. A 19 year old owning their own home; what could possibly go wrong? The room that I used as my bedroom was the same one I slept in as a child. I could have chosen a different room, but that one was the biggest, and the other two bedrooms were tiny. I decided I would change the story of that room, so I had sex with as many people as I could in it throughout the years I lived there. But, I hated that house. I was thankful I had somewhere to live and independence, but I hated it, all the hurt and pain that was ground into the core of that house. It had been my grandmother’s house since 1956. My mother grew up in that house of horrors.

I lived in that house until I was 36 years old. I put it up for sale and moved 4 hours away. I eventually moved back, but into a different home, with no negative attachments. I recently looked up the house and discovered the person that bought it had recently sold it because he had to move out of state for work. He had remodeled and modernized the house. I was overcome with emotions and had a long emotional crying session.

Someone bought my used up house of sorrow and misery and turned it into something positive. The outside of it looked new and full of life. It made me happy, and I could finally let go of a large chunk of pain that had been haunting me for decades.